OBLIGE

OBLIGE is a discontinued procedural map generator developed by Andrew Apted (andrewj) that supports classic Doom and other games: Heretic, Hexen, Wolfenstein 3D, and Quake. It features a GUI interface, a, prefab visual assets, and the ability to create deathmatch levels.

The "OBLIGE" name is a tribute to the earlier SLIGE map generator. OBLIGE surpassed its unrelated predecessor with more compelling architecture and new features, including: real outdoor areas, support for games besides Doom, and a GUI for changing the many settings. Moreover, instead of being written entirely in C, like SLIGE, the majority of OBLIGE level creation code is written in the Lua scripting language. The use of Lua resulted in a number of customizations by others, such as the addition of Skulltag support.

After 12 years of development, Apted decided to officially cease OBLIGE work in 2017. His parting statement was "my only regret is that OBLIGE never reached my vision of what a great random level generator could be", but this tool was considered the best of its kind and received the inaugural Codeaward at the Cacowards that year.

Apted shared the source code with a license, so others have  it. The primary successor is the OBSIDIAN fork.

Release history

 * v0.81 was released on January 22, 2007. It is the first public release.
 * v0.85 was released on February 19, 2007.
 * v0.94 was released on July 6, 2007.
 * v0.97 was released on May 30, 2008.
 * v3.39 was released on April 12, 2009.
 * v3.43 was released on August 11, 2009.
 * v3.47 was released on September 22, 2009.
 * v3.51 was released on February 24, 2010.
 * v3.57 was released on April 7, 2010.
 * v4.28 was released on September 29, 2012.
 * v5.10 was released in 2013.
 * v6.05 was released on April 30, 2014.
 * v6.10 was released on July 11, 2014.
 * v6.20 was released on March 10, 2015.
 * v7.17 (or 7.17-WEIRD) was released on September 21, 2015.
 * v7.50 was released on September 27, 2016.
 * v7.666 was released on July 29, 2017.
 * v7.70 was released on October 25, 2017. It is the final release of OBLIGE.

Version 1
Never released to the public, offered only basic level building capabilities.

Version 2

 * Full support for Doom and Doom II, ability to create functioning Heretic and Hexen levels. Buggy but working support for Wolfenstein 3D.
 * Caged monsters
 * Prefab system
 * Secret levels

Version 3

 * Doom, Doom II, Heretic, Hexen and buggy Quake support.
 * Bigger rooms and more complex architecture
 * Modular support for custom content such as Skulltag support
 * Faster node building

Version 4

 * Doom, Doom II, Final Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Quake and Quake II support.
 * Prefab system
 * Caged monsters (feature present in version 2 but not in version 3)
 * 3D floors for Quake, Quake II, and some Doom source ports (GZDoom, Legacy and EDGE methods of defining them are supported).
 * Power-ups such as berserk packs and invulnerability spheres

Version 5
Never formally released, a test package is available.
 * Large prefabs. Maps produced are considered by author to be boring.
 * Doom engine games only, due to using prefabs in Doom map format.

Version 6
Rewrite of version 3 using the new prefab system.

"Weird shapes" version

 * Version number is 7.x
 * Picks some points on a grid and connect some of them with lines.

Version 7.50

 * Uses shape grammars.

Version 7.70

 * "Parks" added, naturalistic outdoor areas.
 * Improved outdoor scenic regions just outside the map.
 * Heretic support.
 * UI revamp.
 * Hallways added.
 * More window prefab variety.
 * Barrels, blood and corpses placed in the world.
 * "Ramp Up" and "Bosses" settings for monster panels.
 * "Weapons" button to control how soon/late weapons show.
 * New health/ammo settings "Bit Less" and "Bit More".
 * New themes: "Bit Mixed", "Original-ish", "Episode-ish".
 * Better looking sky generator mountains.
 * Improved title generator.
 * Numerous bug fixes.

Version 7.70 was released October 25th, 2017 and is the final OBLIGE release.

Forks and expansions
ObHack is a fork of OBLIGE version 2 that added new features. These features were later added to OBLIGE.

ObAddon is a large collection of textures and other resources that can be used with OBLIGE to generate more variety of levels.

In 2021, a fork called OBSIDIAN was first released. It aims to continue improving the final version of OBLIGE and also fully incorporates the ObAddon resources. Thus the ObAddon project was also merged into OBSIDIAN.